Resident: Proposed transfer area has too many accidents

Published 12:00 am, Saturday, March 20, 2010

HADDAM -- The site that was under consideration for the new transfer station was "perfect" because of its location off a state road, Selectman Peter Arsenault said.

But while officials said the site off Route 81 had several reasons to recommend it, a local resident disagreed, citing what he said is an abnormally high accident rate on the road.

Officials had been discussing a site off Route 81, the Killingworth Road. But on Thursday, the owners withdrew the site from consideration.

The site is just south of the Burr Elementary School.

Arsenault, who worked with a study committee to analyze options, said there were two requirements for a new transfer station.

First, he said, the site had to be centrally located.

Second, it also needed to "be able to handle the amount of traffic that (project) could generate." That, Arsenault said, virtually dictated it had to be located off a state road.

However, David L. Sullivan, who lives at 734 Killingworth Road, said the road has had a surprisingly high rate of accidents -- as many as 97 in a five-year period.

Sullivan obtained the list of accidents for an area one mile north and south of the proposed location from the state Department of Transportation.

While it relates the accident experience for a five-year period, Sullivan said the data he obtained does not include several subsequent accidents that occurred in 2009-10, including a fatal accident on Feb. 11.

During the sample period, Sullivan said a number of homes were built in the area adjoining the property. "That site is ringed completely by neighbors," he noted, which only added to the traffic in the area.

In the summer, Sullivan said, the road becomes even more crowded, with vehicles travelling to and from Hammonassett State Park in Madison.

"I have a flood of RVs coming by my house on Sunday afternoons," he said.

First Selectman Paul J. DeStefano has repeatedly said he is anxious to put the transfer station matter to rest once and for all.

"We've been operating for 32 years without a permit," he told the audience at the selectmen's meeting Wednesday.

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No, he said, the town is under a consent order to close the present transfer station by July 31. "Basically, we're out of luck then."

When a resident suggested the town ignore the deadline and continue to operate the present transfer station, DeStefano countered, "I am not going to operate criminally in town," and then adding, "The existing site is a dead issue."